by removing him from the theatre of his crimes, of his infamy, and of his condemnation:" and, unfavourable as the circumstances of the Australian penal colonies have generally been for ensuring the reformation of criminals, I am enabled to state, from my own experience and observation, that this second object of punishment has actually been attained in these colonies in many instances; and that such instances would, in all probability, have been tenfold more numerous, but for the circumstances and events, connected with the administration of penal discipline in the Australian colonies, hereinafter to be detailed. Indeed, I am confident, from all I have seen and heard in these colonies, that the rigorous enforcement of a proper system of penal discipline in New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land would have proved corrective or reformatory in the highest degree.
It is well observed by Archbishop Whately, that the criminal population of England is not a fixed quantity, which will be permanently diminished by the abstraction of a certain portion of its gross amount, but a constantly increasing quantity; the abstraction effected by transportation necessarily accelerating, as he imagines, the rate of increase. I observe, however, in reply, that if transportation is so managed as to prove
